Various hay bale processors or threshers are known and most of these are driven by the auxiliary drive coupling of tractors. Some of these processors are also driven by electric motors which are coupled directly to the rotor drive of the processors. Bales of hay are fed against the rotor blade either from a horizontal conveyor or from the top of a rotor bin. Some bins are provided with two or more rotors.
With electric motor driven rotors it is known that these motors draw excessive current due to the fact that the load on the rotors is not stable due to the weight of the bales or due to the humidity of the hay in the bales or the type of stock in the bales, thereby offering more resistance to the rotor blades. Consequently, these hay bale processors are expensive to operate.
Another disadvantage with known prior art hay bale processors is that the bales are cut from various angles or locations within the thresher container and this produces hay fibers having different lengths and often excessive lengths. It is known that when mixing hay fibers with other feed stock material that the animals prefer shorter fibers than longer fibers. Shorter fibers are also better for digestion by animals and longer fibers can affect their digestion and therefore the health of the animals. It is therefore important to control the length of the fibers, when cutting hay, in order to improve or at least not to affect the health of the animals.
A still further disadvantage of hay bale processors is that many of these are used solely to trash hay bales and convey the trashed material into a storage pile or storage bins. Known processors also cannot adjust the cut of the fibers within close tolerances whereby to provide an average cut length which is better for admixture with other feed stock material.
Another disadvantage of known hay bale processors is that they are bulky, have hydraulic pumps, need a tractor to operate, are difficult to service, often requiring repair and the knives of the rotor often become gummed and ineffective when cutting hay of the type which has gummy substances.
Another disadvantage of known hay bale processors is that they are dimensioned to accept only certain type and size of bales, i.e. circular or rectangular, and therefore are not versatile whereby to be able to process different size and configuration of bales.